The Team

Paul Dowding – Trustee & Chairman

Paul has 3 sons (mid-teens and early twenties) and lives in Somerset with his wife. Paul brings 25 years of business experience and for the past 12 years has been running his own successful Leadership and Management Development business. Before this Paul worked for one of the UK’s largest direct marketing agencies for 7 years as Client Services Director.

Paul founded Alive & Well in December 2008. Along with a clear vision of the shape, structure and life saving work of the charity, Paul brings entrepreneurial drive and energy with which to steer it. Paul is committed to direct action to relieve suffering.

Kim Findlay – Trustee & Managing Director

Kim is married to Sarah and has two children Holly 18 and Fred 16. The family lives in Wiltshire. Kim has had a varied career initially as a journalist and commercial film producer and more recently as a Business Development Consultant.

Kim has extensive business and project management skills and brings an enthusiasm for getting stuck in and making things happen. Kim helped run another local charity for 7 years and has served as a Parish Councillor. In 2008 Kim raised £5,000 for various charities by traveling across India on an old Enfield motorbike. He even managed not to fall off much.

Kim says that “helping set up Alive & Well and establishing our programme in Sierra Leone has been one of the most daunting but rewarding challenges of my life”.

Kim’s role is Managing Director and Fundraising Manager.

Jonathan Sugden – Trustee, Vice Chairman & Communications

Jon was a founding partner and Managing Director of one of Worcestershire’s largest and most successful independent property management companies, established over 20 years ago. Over the last 15 years he has travelled extensively across Europe, parts of Africa, Asia and the sub continent of India by motorcycle and has witnessed much poverty, deprivation and need in many of those areas.

He is now committed to making a difference, to physically helping at least some of those who do not have the basic essentials of life and who are not able to help themselves. After 3 years as Treasurer, Jon has now moved on to take the new roles of Communications and Vice Chairman. Jon has been with his wife Cindy, a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Birmingham, for 25 years.

Barnaby Elphick – Trustee & Secretary

Barnaby lives outside of Bath with his family. Educated to post graduate level, Barnaby started off as a teacher and has spent the majority of his career in the learning and skills sector, working at senior management level for both regional and national organisations. He currently runs his own business providing consultancy services in both the private and the public sector.

Barnaby has worked successfully in a voluntary capacity for a number of charities and is committed to taking the work of Alive & Well forward to make a significant positive difference to people’s lives.

Sean Mills – Trustee & Pujehun Development Organisation (PDO) liaison

Sean Mills is married to Annabel, his wife of 33 years standing, and has three grown up children. After 25 years in the exhibition business and 16 years in Southern Africa which included establishing a training company for those wanting to use exhibitions as a marketing tool, Sean changed tracks to become a garden designer. He brings communication and management skills together with a love of Africa and a keen interest in horticulture to the team.

Sean is responsible for the maintenance and development of the portfolio of 72 wells. He has formed a close working relationship with the team in Sierra Leone and is committed to the betterment of lives in this emerging part of the world.

Richard Whittle – Trustee

Richard has travelled extensively throughout his life and has worked in a number of countries including contract farming in Australia and construction in the U.S. and Spain.

After acquiring a teaching degree and having taught in Bristol, Richard then took on, renovated and worked a smallholding in Wales where his two children were brought up. In partnership with Hal (a fellow trustee) Richard runs an Xmas tree wholesale and retail business, sourcing trees from Europe and the U.K. For the past ten years Richard has been growing trees and managing his own woodland on the Mendip Hills.

His commitment to Alive & Well stems from a love and admiration for the many that helped him on his travels in Africa. Richard brings huge practical and logistical experience to Alive & Well.

Dr Hal Macfie – Trustee, Treasurer & PDO liaison

Hal is a statistician by training, with research interests in areas of product assessment and consumer research. Author of over 100 scientific publications and four books, he was Head of Consumer Science at the Institute of Food Research, Reading, England, before becoming Director of the Institute. Hal is now an independent consultant, Visiting Professor at Reading and Nottingham Universities and European Editor of the peer reviewed journal Food Quality and Preference.

Together with Richard Whittle, another trustee, Hal runs Frenchay Forestry, a partnership of 30 years, growing, importing and selling some 40,000 Xmas trees per year. Hal has also been Treasurer of the UK Chemometrics and International Sensometrics Societies.

Our focus

Alive & Well has a very clear, simple focus: To sink water wells in villages in West Africa, specifically the Pujehun district of Sierra Leone, in order to put in place a firm foundation for each village community to be able to build a stable and healthy future for life.

Registered Address

Meadow’s Edge
High Street
Stoney Stratton
Somerset
BA4 6DY

Determination

Alive & Well will not finish working with a community until free, safe, sustainable and sufficient water has been provided, or it is not possible to accomplish this using the technology and equipment available to us.